THE SHELL INTERFACES

Common ways to get into a shell are

• No GUI - if your system has no GUI, you must enter commands from shell.
• Terminal - if GUI is loaded , open terminal by right clicking and selecting terminal

Default prompts:

1. If you are a regular user ,while opening the terminal ,you will see a dolor sign as $
2. If you are a root user ,you will see a hash prompt as #

The concept of virtual consoles:

In Linux there are six virtual terminals, in which you can log in .These terminals can be accessed by pressing CTRL+ALT+ (F1/F2/ ... F6). Your graphical window is a graphical shell (CTRL+ALT+F7). These virtual terminals can be useful when a GUI program hangs. In such occasions open any one of the virtual terminals and login as that user (GUI). Then run ps –e followed by kill command. You can login as the same user or any other user in any other terminal. The virtual console proves the concept of multi-user and multitasking. This is possible by running the same processes in more than one virtual terminal. Once in a virtual console, you can switch back to GUI by pressing ALT+F7. Or you can start a new GUI from any one of the virtual consoles.